Address—Michael Anderson
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Good evening, shall we start the meeting tonight by singing a hymn from the hymn book? 297 When all thy mercies, Oh my God, my rising soul surveys transported with the view I'm lost in wonder. Love and praise, verse 310 Thousand thousand precious gifts. My daily thanks, employee.
Nor is the least a cheerful heart to taste those gifts with joy.
Because some brothers start #297 please.
Let's ask for his help.
Our God and our Father, we come before thee this evening we have a opportunity to open my word and to hear what a spirit has to teach us. We ask that that will help the speaker to bring forward a message that will be of help and importance to each person that's here. We have to double help each of us to mold our lives to be more in conformity to thee. But I always learning more from thy word about thee.
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We thank Thee for all thou hast done for us, from the very thing that Allah has allowed us to become thy sons and daughters, to the everyday, every moment, every second of our lives that Thou art with us and art here to help us and to direct our paths. We ask that that will help us to remember this and to depend upon Thee. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Most of you are probably familiar with the uprisings that occurred in Ferguson, MO. Uh, it's a town near Saint Louis. I can tell you I vividly remember the 9th of November 24th, 2014. That was the night that the grand jury returned to NO and returned no indictment.
That night, 25 buildings were set ablaze, 2 police cars and many others were burned, 61 People were arrested, one person was shot and burned in their car.
It was a.
Might have mayhem in Ferguson, MO Kind of a kind of alarming here in the Midwest and this area of the country. We don't usually see that yet. I remember that evening well. I was sitting in Midway Airport awaiting my flight to leave Chicago and go to Saint Louis. It was a late flight. It was the last flight of the day.
And we got onto the plane. The door was closed.
Which is usually a good sign the jet bridge was removed.
And our flight was canceled.
Unfortunately, the uprisings, uh, unbeknownst to me, were right at the end of the runway in Saint Louis. Ferguson is positioned very conveniently that way, and with shots being fired in the air and other things going on, they didn't feel comfortable having planes come in for a landing. So they opened the doors back up and let us all back off the airplane and all stand in one single line.
For one remaining gate agent.
That was still there that evening to rebook each one of us.
That's took quite a bit of time. We all got off the plane and many people were angry.
Many were demanding that the airline pay for their hotels, pounding fists and making comments under under their breath.
Some I I even heard one man that was blaming the African American race for our plight.
And the fact that we were not on a plane headed to Saint Louis.
Sure, I had responsibilities the next morning I had meetings that I was supposed to be at.
But I felt strangely peaceful.
I was thankful that I was going to be able to fly there in the morning.
Thankful that my home and family weren't part of all that mess.
Thankful that I was a frequent traveler with the know how and options that come with having that behind you. And thankful that I didn't feel angry like everyone or many of them around me.
That feeling of peace and thankfulness was part of what kind of inspired my thoughts about this evening.
I was umm.
In a meeting, umm, earlier this year, one of the companies that I work with, I helped put together an all employee meeting where they brought everybody together into one place. There were several speakers, myself being one of them. We brought in a couple other, uh, consultants that I have acquaintance with. One of them that spoke was, uh, former Blue Angel pilot. Some of you may have heard of the Blue Angels, may have seen them at an air show. Blue Angels are kind of famous because they're some of the best.
Pilots that there are they fly their planes 36 inches wing tip to wing tip.
Upside down.
On top of each other.
Very precision flying. So this gentleman was talking and the topic that he had was glad to be here, glad to be here is a phrase that apparently is very meaningful to the Blue Angels. They use it a lot and it really is a sense of gratitude. And he was applying the concept of gratitude as it applies into a company environment. I know that he and his partner.
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Both very accomplished people involved in aviation.
Are both very strong Christian gentlemen and umm, always find an opportunity when they speak to work in, uh, some of God's message and a testimony into their messages. And as I listen to that, and I thought about the feeling that I had when I was sitting in the airport and the message that they delivered, those were a couple of things that brought to my mind the concept of gratitude.
And gratitude.
That we should feel as Christians.
I know that this study, I'll just say this up front, has been more for my own benefit than for yours.
It's apparent to me that when you take on the responsibility of speaking, the Lord puts you through some pre exercise, some opportunities to grow and to learn yourself. And then hopefully sharing some of those things with you will help you to inspire some of those same thoughts as well.
It was a quote I came across, thought it was interesting. It said. It's it is not happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people that are happy.
That's backed up, I think scripturally in Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 7. I will pause for a few of the scriptures. Some of them I'll just read. You're free to turn if you wish to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Be careful. I would say anxious might be a a term there for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which.
Path of all understanding, so keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
When I think about gratitude, I thinking about the story in Luke 17 where there were 10 lepers who met Jesus and they asked to be cleansed. You remember the story Jesus?
Sent them off to the priest to present themselves all cleanse, but there was only one that turned back and praised him and thanked him for doing that. One of 10.
Which one would I have been?
Which one are you?
As we talk about gratitude, I think we need to think in terms of gratitude is something that has maturity, has growth, has opportunity for, umm, change. I don't think it's an on off switch. It's not you're either have gratitude or you don't. I think there's a, a continuum of it. I think that gratitude starts with being thankful for what God has provided.
It starts with being thankful for what?
God has provided turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 8 of a few verses to read here.
The, uh, setting here is, umm, a speech being given to the Israelites after they've gone through it a lot and right before they're about to realize a great promise.
About to realize an opportunity that they've been waiting for, that God is going to take them into.
And there's a little a little talk here Moses gives on things that need to be thought through.
Verse seven. For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land. A land of brooks, of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of the valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates. The land of olive oil and honey. A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarcest, thou shalt not lack anything in it. A land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
I would imagine if I was an Israelite back then that would sound pretty cool.
That's a lot of what I was looking for and a lot of what I was wanting. A great provision, a promised land they were about to enjoy.
And after explaining that that's what they're going to receive the next verse, verse 10, a request that they have gratitude. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless. I will say thank the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
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An important step. God provides provision.
We say thanks and then a warning against self preoccupation versus 11 Through 17. I think there've been enough experience with the Israelites at that point to recognize that this type of warning was probable, unnecessary. Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today.
Lest when you've eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them.
And when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God. Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of slavery. Who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water? Who brought you water out of the flinty rock? Who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your father's did not know?
That he might humble you and test you to do you good.
In the end, here's the warning. Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this well.
God's gifts alone are not able to bring you joy.
They only bring you joy when they're combined with your gratitude.
What we're saying here is that perhaps what we don't need we are not in need of is more accomplishment and more accumulation.
But instead, more appreciation.
That appreciation was what allows you to convert what you have into joy.
Who here has a job?
Who here has a family?
Who has clothing?
Who isn't hungry?
Who has more to be thankful for than they realize?
In First Timothy 6, Paul says to be content with food and clothes alone.
We have a lot to be thankful for.
Some have said that this is the time in the history of the world where there's more to be thankful for and less thankfulness than ever before. I don't know whether that's true. I wasn't here back then, but it could be. We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot that we probably forget to be thankful about.
I'd like us to turn to another, umm portion, and we're going to kind of come back and forth to this portion a couple of times this evening. I'd like us to turn to the book of Jonah.
We're gonna start out reading in the first chapter, Jonah, and we'll end up near the end of the fourth chapter.
Now, before you get concerned, I'm not going to read straight through. We'll skip a lot of verses.
And, uh, it'll be spread out through the rest of the talk.
In Jonah chapter one verse 15.
Joan is in a real trouble, it says. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging.
So as a background, Jonah's doing the wrong thing. Jonah's on a ship, God stopping it, and Jonah realizes it and says I need to be cast off if you want this to to stop. And so they do. They put him into the middle of the ocean. I don't think they had life preservers back then.
So he was in a world of hurt. He's floating out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and he's, umm, really not got a lot of options. Probably unswimmable.
But God had a solution. God had a solution.
And he provides it in verse 17, says, Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow of Jonah.
Now, the word prepared there is kind of like provided and it has a similar meaning. Other translations were translated as provided. And in fact, if you take a look at that word, it exists four times in the book of Jonah. That word, if you go back to the Greek, is a word, umm, I'm not sure how to pronounce Greek, but it's uh, like manna, mayonnaise, something like that.
Mani think AH.
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Uh, very similar to the mana that we heard about that they had in the wilderness, which was a provision for them, something that God provided to help them to not be hungry and to last through the years that they had in the wilderness.
But much like this children of Israel and their manna, Jonah wasn't too pleased with the approach to the solution that God brought forward. He starts to complain. And in chapter 2 verses two and three, we see some of that. He says, I cried by my, by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord. And he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou hurts my voice, for thou hast cast me into the deep in the midst of the Seas and the floods compassed me about all thy billows and thy waves.
Over me. I'm not sure that it's what we want to do to read the rest of that.
There's a lot of complaining, a lot of lack of positivity, if we can put it that way, and not much gratitude.
That takes me to talking about the first common enemy of gratitude that I want to mention tonight, and that is that sometimes even when God provides.
Umm.
We let, uh, we, we, umm, even times, even sometimes when he provides, we let our pickiness get in the way.
We not sure that what he provided is exactly what we wanted. It isn't exactly where we wanted to go. You know, I had a student in my, uh, in my class I, I teach collegiately and umm, I was down in uh, Cabo San Lucas and I had uh, issued a midterm to the students to take online.
And I watched the, the students were taking them online and completing them because I can see online that they're doing it and they have a time period within which to do it and it's a few days that they can take, uh, any time in there that works for them. There was one particular student, a rather, uh, rather good student actually. So I noticed hadn't, uh, taken the assessment, the assessment had closed. That meant she was in a zero position with her test. And as I kind of expected, I started getting, uh, umm, within a few hours. I got some emails and some.
Smells and other things desperate from her umm, because she really wanted to take that test. She didn't want to take a zero, uh, in her grade for the mid term. And so I contacted her and I listened to what she had to say and I said, I I'll open the test for you and you can take that tonight.
Oh, I'm so glad, Professor Anderson. I'm just so happy.
But you know, it's rather late here. Would it be possible for you to open it up for me to take it tomorrow?
Because it'd be a lot easier and better for me to take it tomorrow, see how quickly she went from being relieved and thankful that I opened the assessment. She'd gone from a zero to something she could score, and all of a sudden now it's tomorrow. And then the next day after I did that, there was a part of the assessment she was supposed to, uh, scan in and, and put online for me that way, but she didn't have scanning.
And she was gonna use their scanner to school they can use, but she wasn't gonna go to school that day. So she wondered if she could go scan it tomorrow, the next day after that, because she wasn't planning on driving all the way to the school that day.
Have you guys have any situations like that in your life? I know I have. Like I said, this is more about me.
Have you got a job? But not one that's all you hope for?
Got a husband that would be perfect with just.
Something extra.
You got to go on a trip, but you didn't like the flight times that you had to fly.
You know, provision, that which God gives us, the manna that was provided in the wilderness.
They complained because they didn't want mana, they wanted meat.
And I would just in re in relation to this enemy of gratitude, I would just leave, leave you with this thought. God's provision does not always come wrapped in your preferences.
It's interesting to see that Jonah eventually changes his frame of reference by verse nine. We see. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of Thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. He finally changes his tune and uses the word voice of Thanksgiving.
And I don't think that it's ironic at all that the very next verse, verse 10, the immediate next verse, we have in the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land.
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When we move past whatever our complaining is and we move into that spirit of gratitude for what He has given us, He is able to continue with the provision. In fact, I would say gratitude opens the door to God's provision. Without gratitude, our heart is not able to pick up what God's providing and use it appropriately.
But with gratitude.
It opens the door for us to use His provision as He would in our lives.
You know the next use of the word prepared or provided in Jonah is for the shady plant which moves us all the way over to Chapter 4.
So if we turn to chapter 4, and we can read about that here, starting in verse five and through verse 6.
So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd. There's that prepared, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
I gotta say, I kind of understand this. I don't like heat either.
And the heat I'm used to is nothing compared to what it would be in the desert of Assyria.
So a little shade would certainly make you happy. And God provided it for him. It was a good thing. It was a wonderful thing. Even though we see that he was doing something that was disobedient to God, God still provided.
We will see later as we continue through Jonah, that.
God was kind of setting up the dominoes so he could knock them back down, no pun intended.
I would like to share with you a story that I'm going to kind of give in some parts. The one consultant that spoke, I'm glad to be here at that, uh, at that employee meeting, there's another consultant, a friend of mine that, umm, he's also very accomplished. Umm, and you'll learn that as I talk a little bit about him. He especially, uh, has made his, his goal to, uh, spread.
His story and his experiences.
As a testimony to the Lord and what the Lord can do, both in a gospel sense as well as an encouragement for Christians.
This, uh, gentleman, I will, uh, I will, uh, umm, give you his name. So, you know, when I'm referring to him, his name is Admiral McCabe. Umm, and he was, uh, interestingly, the director of Top, uh, Top Gun. He was in charge of the Top Gun training, uh, segment. Umm, there was a movie made about that, uh, number of years ago and he was actually the director at the time they made that.
But into his story a little, umm.
His dad had been a World War 2 Navy fighter pilot in the Pacific and, uh, was killed in the Korean War. But he, umm, really wanted to be, uh, a fighter pilot. Umm, as he was growing up and, umm, the, uh, time when he got to the right age, the Navy believed that Vietnam was winding down and was cutting aviators. Umm, So it was kind of unfortunate because he was really hoping to get involved in that.
And so he was put onto a list of waiting a seat in the squadron.
And was assigned to one of the original Top Gun instructors.
Umm and umm. Then some things changed. The Navy hadn't been engaged for about four years and they decided they needed to re engage in Vietnam, in, in in flying submissions. And somehow he was added to the squadron without ever going through the normal training. Instead he was added to the squadron and he was one of the first students to go through Top Gun training.
They started back the flying missions and unfortunately, umm, they weren't, uh, very successful. Uh, by way of contrast, in all the desert wars that we're familiar with, uh, the Navy has lost five airplanes in Vietnam, over 530.
Maybe hadn't been doing well at that time either. 25% as good as they had in World War 2.
The month, uh, that, uh, Admiral McCabe started flying, the Navy had gone one and one in fights with the North Viet N Vietnamese.
The same week that his father was killed, he was sent out on a mission. In that mission, he engaged 4 Migs near their capital and shot down two of them, and they sent more Migs to uh, uh, to defend, which was the first time that it ever happened in that war. He won the Silver Star and the Singlish Flying Cross for what he did.
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After that day, the Navy went 25 and one on their on their missions.
The first, as he calls it, Glad to be here. Share out why he's grateful he survived over 150 combat missions.
Over 30 years of flying, lost 25% of his squadron, lost through three roommates and had to take care of two widows of friends that were killed.
His perspective is that the Lord took care of him for a reason. There was something in his future that he wanted him to to use that story for. And he says that sometimes what the Lord gives and takes away doesn't make sense until you take the Longview backward.
So the 1St and simple level of gratitude is to say thanks for the provisions that we see that we've been given. I would say that this doesn't require much faith, it's really just good manners.
And of course, we've also learned that we need to avoid putting our own standards on God's provisions and getting picky about what it is that He gives us.
The Lord desires our thankfulness. First Thessalonians 5 says in everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. When we're thankful for the goodness of God in our lives, it touches the very heart of God and encourages Him to shower even more blessings upon us. A thankful heart is truly a floodgate to the blessings and goodness of God in our lives.
Psalm 37 verse four says, Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Are you living in and enjoying provisions that used to be your prayer requests and haven't even said thanks yet?
As we move on to the next level.
I say that gratitude matures with being grateful for why God has purposed the thing. So the first level starts with being thankful for what God's provided, and the second level is being grateful for why God purposed the thing.
Level one is where you learn to thank God for what you can see. Level 2 is where you learn to trust God with what you cannot see.
It's the Lord's will that we're thankful, even for the things that seem bad for us in First Thessalonians 5 verses.
15 through 18.
It reads, See that none render evil for evil unto any man whatever. Follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Everything. Even the things that seem bad for us.
Last year I, uh, spoke on another topic, and one of the things I explained at the beginning of that talk was that the first half of 2015 had been one of the busiest that I've ever had. After that, not not too long after I left camp umm, I found out that one of the customers that I've been helping decided to skip paying my bills.
In one e-mail that I received.
About $50,000 went up in smoke.
And the reason was they've been bought out by a new group who had not worked with me and really didn't have any care about the previous owner's obligations, didn't want to pay the bills that have been left behind when they when they bought the the company.
Unfortunately that wasn't very good for me. It's UMM, wouldn't help my family much.
It really kind of put a hurt on my situation and at that point, honestly, it was hard to see what there was to be thankful for in all the work and all the time away from my family and.
Nothing.
Are you feeling lonely? Perhaps feeling like you don't have any friends? Did you just lose what you perceive as a great job? Have you worked real hard on a class and really yet received a terrible grade?
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Maybe you or someone else that you know is going through a hardship that you just doesn't seem like they deserve.
Let's take a look at how the Apostle Paul viewed a situation like this.
I'm going to read out of Philippians 1 verses 17th through 18. I'm going to read from the Darby edition.
But those out of contention announced the Christ, not purely supposing to arouse tribulation for my bonds. What is it then? At any rate, in every way, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is announced. And in this I rejoice. Yang, also I will rejoice.
You see, Paul sees the end. He in fact articulates it to us. He sees the purpose. He sees that even if the motives are wrong and hurtful to him, God is getting his purpose accomplished. And for that he's joyful and he's grateful.
So he's joyful and grateful, even though they're stirring up trouble for him in bonds. By the way, this is while he's changed 24/7 to a Roman guard sitting in jail.
I often find that we are not so visionary.
We must depend on faith in God. After all, he says in James 1 verses 2 Through 4. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations or trials, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect an entire wanting nothing.
Count it joy when you fall into trials.
I was at an event once where we were listening to a speaker talk. Well behind him, an accomplished artist was painting.
So imagine for a moment that this.
Beautiful ensemble was an artist painting.
The plan was for the artist to be finished with the painting at about the same time that the speaker got to the end of the points that he was making.
In the end, the picture was to be a perfect rendering of the main message the speaker was sharing.
However, as I sat there and watched this, listening to the speaker, watching this painting.
All I saw was seemed to be a mess of paint. It was I, I didn't see any of the genius in this picture at all. It, it was, you know, roughly like this from my perspective. Now, I've told you before, you may have heard that I, I'm, I'm not a great art art aficionado. I, I don't, I probably should have taken that appreciation for art class in college or something, but I definitely thought I would be able to see something.
Now about 2/3 the way through the talk.
The artist who was painting it reached up and did this with the painting.
The artist had been painting it upside down for the 1St 2/3. They were painting the sky and other things that were here and the picture was big and they were painting it upside down. So when they flipped it around, multiple people, a little audible, got gasps, you know, including myself, because all of a sudden we saw what the artist had been painting, what it looked like, a mess of paint.
Became a picture that I could see where it was going, where they finished the last third.
I give you that as an example because I think that we have to have enough faith in God that I didn't have in that painter to praise Him and thank Him while the picture is still upside down.
And while it's still being painted.
While we're going through that trial, while we're going through that thing that we don't understand and can't imagine being grateful for, we've got to have enough faith to believe that God has a plan for it. And when he flips it upside down, we're going to see it.
That's what we have to be willing to understand. I'm going to continue with the story of Admiral McCabe's life and some of the things that he lists out in his talks as things that he's that he's very grateful for in his life. Most of you know the date, September 11Th, 2001.
You probably, when you think of that date, you think of the Twin Towers and the airplanes running into them.
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But there was another building that was hit that day with an airplane.
You remember the Pentagon?
Now, if you start connecting for a moment in your mind what I said about the Admiral and where I might be going with this, you might imagine that he had become, by that point, the director of air warfare for the Navy. He was in charge of everything that the Navy did that had anything to do with lifting off the ground, including ships that they take off from, etcetera, etcetera.
Where was he sitting that day? His office.
And his staff were on the 4th floor of the Pentagon.
The plane that hit the Pentagon came in and hit the side right underneath his office and blew out the 1St 3 fours of the Pentagon right underneath him.
In a split second, I want you to imagine this. Imagine if there was a plane that came in and hit the basement of this building. Imagine the mayhem, the fire. There were tiles on the floor that were popping off because the heat was so high that it was like a popcorn machine of tiles popping off all over the place, smoke everywhere. Nobody even knew what had happened.
Why all of a sudden was did you go and then one to two seconds?
Fire, heat, sounds, everything falling apart.
They couldn't figure out where they were, where they needed to go for safety.
Now I want you to, as you're sitting there in that moment, I want you to ask yourself.
Who here would feel grateful in that moment?
Grateful for the circumstance they're in.
Now the story obviously ends because he's out speaking with him. We're getting everybody out of there and removing them to safety.
One of his friends that was a fighter pilot that was driving down the Interstate saw the plane come out overhead and saw the plane come down and said the plane hit the ground just before it hit the Pentagon.
If that plane had instead kept in the air before it hit, the before it hit, it would have been 510 feet higher. If three floors below them were knocked out, what would have happened? That plane hadn't hit the ground first. He wouldn't be here today. And I think, as he says, that's a clear reminder that we need to be grateful to God for every last breath we take.
Sometimes we think in our first.
Level of simplicity and gratitude of the things that are good that are happening to us.
It's hard to remember sometimes that every breath we take is a gift from God. If we go back to Jonah again, Jonah's sitting outside of Nineveh under the shady plant. God now prepares or provides him. Another thing. We see that word for the third time in verse seven of chapter 4. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day and it smoked the gourd that it withered. And then the fourth time as that word is used in chapter in verse 8.
And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement E wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
I'm not sure that if you and I were writing the story that we would use the word provided. God provided a worm. He provided a hot wind that made me want to die.
But Jonah, who probably wrote this account long after he'd learned his lessons, was able to reflect back and say God provided that for me because it turned me around. God's plan was to use those circumstances to turn Jonah back to doing his work.
And as soon as that lesson is learned, you'll notice the book of Jonah closes and is done.
In this situation, Jonah was able to see the thing.
Afterwards, that was a part of God's plan. As I said earlier, he set the dominoes up to knock them down so he could bring Jonah into compliance.
Our family has had the opportunity to sit and read some books together over the years, and one of the books that we read is a story that you may have read as well by an author named Corey 10 Boom. She was a Holocaust Christian, Holocaust survivor who went through time in the German concentration camps. Umm, we read this. We had the opportunity as a family to visit a concentration camp when we were in Europe.
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Two years ago, and we read this story before that, umm, to give us some better understanding of what we were seeing. I want to share with you one excerpt out of that book, a story that I call Cory 10 Boom's Fleas.
She and her sister were pushed into the Barracks 28 at Ravensbrook, a work camp for prisoners. There were stacks of wooden sleeping platforms, 3 high, and they were deep, covered with dirty thinking straw. There wasn't even enough room for you in each of the bunks to sit up without banging your head.
They had just arrived after a long train ride where they'd had eighty women crushed together in one freight car. And so they were exhausted. And they went in to try to get into these, into these stinky bumps. Excuse me, bunk beds. Excuse me. And umm, tried to lay down. And within moments, Corey sits up and says, please, this place is crawling with them. I, I don't know how I can cope living with such a terrible place.
Imagine sleeping.
On straw that is embedded with tons and tons of fleas.
You might be discouraged.
But her sister says, Corey, I think God's already given us the answer. Her sister's name was Betsy. She says, what was that verse that you read from the Bible this morning? It was the one we read earlier first in First Thessalonians chapter 5. Rejoice, Pray without ceasing and everything give thanks.
Corey says to her sister, says that's too hard in a place like this. Her sister says come on, let's, let's, let's try, let's, let's try to think of what we could be thankful for. What are we thankful for?
Well, we must be thankful in this awful place. I guess I'm thankful that we are together.
And their sister added. And that the guards didn't find that Bible that you have hanging around your neck.
Maybe, says Corey, we should thank God for how crowded we are in here because that way more women are going to hear the word of God when we read it aloud.
That's right, Betsy says, not getting the, uh, sarcasm. And she adds. And thank you, God, for the fleas.
Oh no, no, Betsy, I cannot thank God for the fleas. There is nothing good about them.
Her sister says, well, we'll just have to wait and see.
Every day they awakened at 4:30 AM and they went outside to stand in the cold and be counted. Often times we learned when we were at the concentration camp that the counting could take if they, if they were off by one, they would start over again. And so it could take two to three to four hours sometimes to do the counting. They would be sanding there at attention that time in the morning with very little clothes, uh, in the cold waiting. Well, they got counted.
Then they would work an 11 hour day. They got two meals, black bread.
For breakfast and thin soup of turnips for supper. We get a little bit more than that here at this camp.
A lot more, umm. The only thing that they had to look forward to was when they would stumble back to their bunks at night. They could get their smuggled Bible out and spend some time reading His word.
At first they posted lookouts because if they got caught with a Bible, the person caught would probably be killed.
So they posted lookouts in case anyone was coming in so they could put it away quickly and not be caught with the Bible and have it confiscated.
But after time, they realized no one was coming. They weren't getting caught, so they extended to two readings a day.
One day.
Umm, Betsy grabs Corey's arm and says, You know what I I just figured out? I figured out why no one's bothered us with our Bible studies. I was listening to the guards and overheard one of them saying that none of them want to come into Barracks 28 because of the fleas.
Corey laughed or wanted to said, All right Lord, thank you for the fleas.
Sometimes while we're in the experience of whatever God has for us to experience, we can't see his mind yet, but if we just muster a bit of gratitude.
What's the PS here for His perfect ways and for the purpose that He has for our pain?
We will feel peace.
00:50:02
A second common enemy.
Of gratitude.
Is that it's hard to be grateful to God when we're too preoccupied with ourselves.
A quote that I would share again.
Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self preoccupation.
The reason that Jonah that we've been reading about was outside the gate of the city was because he was angry that he was going to be made look to look foolish. He'd been saying loudly that God was going to destroy and God was not going to destroy and this was going to make him look foolish and he was very upset about that.
He was occupied with himself.
In verse one of chapter 4 it says, But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country, didn't I tell you that you were going to do this and put me in this position?
Pride is an insidious enemy of joy and gratitude.
After all, God says that our righteousness is a filthy wrecks.
So after we get done being prideful of focusing on ourselves about how great we are and we eventually look long enough to see what God said is true.
Then we come to the same conclusion with him, and then what sets in?
More self focus discouragement.
Whatever we focus on in our minds is gonna drive what we do externally. Whatever we think about and we focus on is going to drive externally. So if we're focused on ourselves.
It's not going to be that. We're going to find it easy to be expressing gratitude outside of ourselves when we're focused on ourselves, which can either be positively, as I said, prime, or can be the negative version of that, which is discouragement.
Anyone here been depressed?
Been spending a long time in front of the mirror printing.
Can't remember the last time you did something for someone else just because.
Maybe this enemy is affecting you.
Maybe you have too much self preoccupation and that's getting in the way of you being able to be.
In a state of thankfulness and gratitude.
When you realize that God's purpose for your life isn't just about you.
You'll have something real to be thankful for.
When you realize that God's purpose for your life isn't just about you, you'll have a real reason to be thankful.
In conclusion, we've looked at levels of gratitude.
As I review the two levels, I want you to think about where are you living?
Where are you living today? Are you at a point where you can say solidly? I have arrived at level one where it starts with being thankful for what God has provided. You feel that very confident that the things that God has given you on a regular basis, you are very thankful for and expressive of that.
Are you potentially moving from step one to level 2?
Where gratitude matures by being grateful for why God has purposed the thing.
You know we can never live up to the perfect example of gratitude that is in Christ, but we can grow in our emulation of Him.
And enhance our joy at the same time. So I asked the question, where are you living in terms of gratitude? We also took a look at the two common enemies at at 2 Common enemies, it's not the two, but two common enemies of gratitude. Which of these two is most likely knocking on your door?
Enemy number one was when we get picky, God provides and it's not quite what we were looking for. Enemy number two was when we're too preoccupied with ourselves, either pride or discouragement.
I'd like to finally bring an end to the last chapter of the story of Admiral McCabe.
00:55:01
He calls it his third Glad to Be Here shareout.
Four years ago he went to the doctor thinking he had kidney stones, as did the doctor.
When he went there, they found a large mass and they scheduled surgery for just two days later.
Over that weekend, several got together and prayed earnestly for what was going on. They didn't know for sure until they opened up and got in there, didn't do any biopsies. They saw the Mass and said this, this needs to be operative.
And he said that a piece came over him and it reminded him of that piece that he felt of God's hands on him when he was in the airplanes, back in the fighter pilots. He knew the Lords. He was in the Lord's hands when he went in for that surgery. They removed a 10 LB cancerous tumor, his kidney, a part of the pancreas and everything else on his left side. 20 LB surgical removal.
Two top class world surgeons were in there and they called for 1/3 to come join them because it got so complex.
He shouldn't have survived the surgery.
After the surgery though, no complications, no chemo, no radiation, cancer free.
The surgeons obviously did a biopsy later and looked at exactly what kind of cancer was, and they said based on the type of cancer and the growth rate, it had to have been growing in him for 25 years.
And that six more months, they would estimate it would have cut something off that would have ended his life.
As he puts it, he's straight. As the doctors actually put it, straight up act of God.
His words, miracles happen, and thus I'm grateful and glad to be here.
The conclusion? There is 150 combat missions, 9/11 attack one floor down and a 20 LB cancer.
Quite a lot for one guy to be grateful for surviving.
He says that's why I'm in pay it forward mode and asking the Lord to point me wherever he wants me to engage. And Admiral McCabe has multiple outlets through history, spreads his story and is a great testimony to the Lord, to Christ's goodness, to Christ's all sufficiency, and the gratefulness and peace that he has as a Christian.
Even though our lives may not be filled with such extraordinary challenges and miraculous provisions of God.
What's interesting is that each one of us.
Is just as important to him.
Let's make today the day we go to the doctor with a capital D if I may, and have him find our 20 LB cancer. That part of us that's been holding us back from being filled with gratitude.
And let's get it out.
Let's make a sea change in our mindset, in our mindset, and let's commit to censoring ourselves in gratitude for what provision God has granted and the purpose that He has yet to reveal.
I'd like to conclude with another quote that's in the form of a question.
Don't get too technical with answering the question.
Just think about what it means.
What if you woke up today with only the things that you thank God for yesterday?
Let's close in prayer.
Our God and our Father.
We come before thee, and such gratitude and thankfulness for everything that thou has given to us.
We ask that.
For each of us, they're facing different things in life, whether it be that.
We haven't been thankful enough. We haven't been bringing ourselves to the point of remembering that life isn't just as it as it as it is, it's as thou wouldest. And to be thankful for each and every breath that we take, we ask that that would help us to take that perspective and to drill it deep into our into our beings so that we are in a better state of.
Emulating the gratitude that Jesus has.
And in showing the the gratitude that thou deserve us.
There may be some here who have gone through some tough times and are having a really hard time seeing past it and having a feeling of gratitude toward thee and toward others around them. We ask that that would help them to see through that, that they would return to that joy that Paul talks about when he sees thy purpose, even though something negative was happening to him.
01:00:17
We think the that everything we have, including our ability to become grateful, is from the.
And we asked the for the help for us as feeble humans here attempting to live our lives as best as we can before Thee, and to be a light shining out of thy love to all those around us. They ask Thee to help us with these things. We thank Thee for all thou are and all thy love. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.